A Star Is Born As Henrique’s 2 Goals Sink Jets

Devils 3 Winnipeg 2 — overtime

Rookie Adam Henrique has played all of his 10 NHL games in relative anonymity. After notching his first career goal on Thursday in Philadelphia, he struck for two more goals Saturday night at Prudential Center — including the overtime winner — as the New Jersey Devils skated past the Winnipeg Jets 3-2, making him, at least for one night, a folk hero in Newark.

The home fans were already chanting ‘Hen-Rique’ after his goal that pushed his Devils lead to 2-0 in the second period, and they cheered even louder after his nifty goal on a breakaway during the five-minute overtime period gave the team their second consecutive win and pushed their record to 6-5-1.

New Jersey’s most consistent player this season has been Patrik Elias and he continued that trend early in the 2nd period, giving the team a 1-0 lead. Dainius Zubrus raced into the offensive zone along the left wing wall and found a streaking Elias wide-open in the slot; Elias hammered a one-timer into the top right hand corner over the Winnipeg goalie Ondrej Pavelec’s glove hand for his 6th goal of the season.

Henrique doubled the lead almost nine minutes later when on a semi-breakaway he flipped a backhand shot past the Jets’ goalie, while being hooked at from behind by 2 defenders. “It felt good,” said Henrique, “especially at the time of the game when we were up 1-0. I didn’t know if there was going to be a penalty (when they hooked me) or what, and the puck didn’t seem to sit down (for me) either.”

Martin Brodeur and the Devils held onto the 2-0 lead until Mark Flood netted his 1st career goal 6:43 into the third period on a long shot. Jim Slater evened the score for Winnipeg when he took advantage of a no-call that neutralized Devils defenseman Anton Volchenkov, allowing him to get a shot past Brodeur uncontested with 2:45 left in regulation.

Evander Kane took a hooking penalty with 48 seconds left in regulation but New Jersey was unable to capitalize on the power play that carried over into overtime. Henrique jumped on the ice to replace Elias during the extra session after the man-advantage had expired and found himself on a breakaway again after a perfect pass from Zach Parise. “He scored some awesome goals tonight for us,” said the Devils captain, who added that “he played really well. He’s getting better and better every game. It’s fun to play on a line with him.”

Henrique very calmly skated in towards Pavelec and snapped a wrist shot low to the glove side that found the back of the net, sending home a bunch of happy humans from the Rock. When asked about the winning goal after the game, the 21-year-old Henrique’s face lit up, “Oh my God, my heart started racing from the blue-line in again (like on the previous goal),” he said with a smile from ear-to-ear. “I got in there and tried to keep it simple, I didn’t want to go to the same move again.”

Strangely, the win was the first of the season for Brodeur (in his fourth game played out of 12, with the calendar reading November. “It was a good win for us, back-to-back wins after losing what, four in a row,” said Brodeur afterwards. “It definitely weighs on you, the way you approach a game when you haven’t helped the team get any points in the standings yet.”

Game Notes:Ilya Kovalchuk (groin) and Andy Greene (lower body) were scratches for New Jersey. Henrique has 5 points (3g-2a) in the last three games; Elias now has a point in four straight games (2g-2a). Parise had two assists in the game and has 21 points in 21 career games against the Thrashers/Jets. After not registering a point in his first ten games, rookie Adam Larsson now has an assist in each of his last two. Jets defensemen Zach Bogosian led all skaters in ice time with 26:25, and Henrik Tallinder led NJ with 24:58. Petr Sykora led all players with six shots on goal; three players led Winnipeg with three each. Volchenkov blocked a game-high three shots. New Jersey (6-5-1) is off until Tuesday when they host Carolina (5-5-3) and Winnipeg (5-6-2) plays at MSG against New York (6-3-3) on Sunday night.